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Six Nations: Stuart Lancaster reflects on England's win over Ireland

England head coach Stuart Lancaster was full of pride in his side's performance after their 13-10 win over Ireland.

Last Updated: 24/02/14 7:08pm

"Given the experience of the Ireland team, the form they were in, the quality of the coaching and the players that they have in their team and some of the relative inexperience we have in our team, I'm just so proud of the boys," he said. "Delighted for them.

"It was a proper Test match, two really good sides going at it.

"I thought Ireland were excellent throughout, scored a try after half-time and really had some momentum with them

"But I thought we showed great maturity in closing out the game and great tries as well so (I am) really, really pleased."

Lancaster was also quick to praise his team's defensive display and, when asked for the key to the win, he said: "I think it was character, spirit, playing for the shirt.

"Ireland, fair play to them, threw everything at us and once we got that lead we just clung on in there."

Marker

Man of the match Mike Brown believes England have laid down a marker for the rest of the Six Nations campaign.

"Obviously every game is huge for us," Brown said. "They were unbeaten and we wanted to set a marker today.

"All the boys were outstanding: one to 15, the guys coming off the bench, awesome, we're really happy."

Rob Kearney's try straight after half-time could have easily knocked the hosts' confidence, but they responded well and Brown insists they knew they would be fine if they stuck to their game-plan.

"We were pretty happy at half time. Just stick to what we were doing well and just finish off the phases," he said.

"We were just happy to score, we were on the ropes a bit then so that was a massive momentum changer for us.